Epilogue

What happens next?

As I’d gone back home to Sheffield I applied for a temporary job working at NEXT again as who knew how long I’d have to wait, heard horror stories of it taking years to find an airline job and I needed my license before I could even apply. There are also deadlines for when you can apply by or have to wait until the next intake for quite a few of the partner airlines.

I had a nerve wracking 3 weeks of waiting for my license to arrive from the CAA and my final report from Oxford. I needed both to apply for an airline. Blue book in hand I immediately applied for Easyjet and Jet2. I heard back from both! The easyjet assessment day took place at Oxford, so I got to go back for a weekend! Already it felt strange to be an outsider. The jet2 initial assessment was an online maths test and personality profile.

A week later I had a missed call from jet2 whilst I was at work, the message said they were inviting me for an interview and I was so happy! I went home and checked my emails and there was one from Oxford congratulating me on my results of the assessment day and that easyJet were offering me a position flying their A320 fleet. Too good to refuse and I joined the orange family straight away. This was just about a month after leaving Oxford! I’m so happy that my dream and goal of becoming a first officer (and validating the web address of this blog) has actually come true!

Josh and I also did a refresher sim before type rating in the Oxford 737s:

Next came type rating (I had to wait until August for a course to become available), I did this at Woodford in Manchester so conveniently close to home. Then I was allocated my base which is Berlin SXF, I’ve been in Germany ever since, flying for easyjet and generally loving life. After an induction course in Gatwick and Base training in Nimes, I began my line training in October 2016. I’m now (July 2018) almost at the stage of unfreezing my license now which means more paperwork for the CAA but that’s how it goes. There are the yearly medical and 6 monthly sims and tech exams so you’re never 100% finished training and there’s always more to learn.

Day 1 of type rating: I was happy to be there!

Graduation

Our graduation was postponed until May 2017 but it was such a fun evening and so good to see all our coursemates and instructors again, I was also pleasantly surprised to have bagged ‘best in flight training’ in my course and won a framed certificate and a pen.

I want to round off this blog by saying thank to everyone who has read it this far (sorry it took so long), thank you for your messages and support and I’m always happy to offer advice about my experiences of training. 

Good luck and happy flying!

Emily x